SONGSTRESS' CALL
by break-beat-dA
Summary: A man reduced to nothing is selected by a queen for the chance of a lifetime. Marissa TF oneshot.


_Welcome to my stage little one. I am Marissa, a songstress of some renown, though given the sorry state of this place, you may find it hard to believe._

_Huge crowds once flocked to hear me sing, then something changed. The audience, once so enrapt, began to leave._

_I continued to sing yet my voice fell silent upon their ears._

_Perhaps you'd care to listen to me sing? You'll be the first in an age to hear it. Even if only you, it's a wonderful thing to have an audience again._

I moved the character I was controlling with the click of my keyboard over to the "Sit" option and began to listen to her addictive melodic intonation.

Ever since I found Marissa in this game, I instantly fell in love with the song she hymned: it's the only reason I have twice as many hours on this file as I should have. I don't know why, but I can almost feel a connection between me and this virtual spirit. Of course, I had done other things with this game too, I couldn't possibly quit this game with only 90% completion. Tonight was no exception, but I was close to wrapping up; it was getting pretty late, even for me. I could see the street lamp near my room off in the distance, and the clock on my phone read 2 A.M. I looked back at my phone again. 2:26 A.M. I'm already probably stretching the boundaries, and remembering that I still had homework wasn't much help either. I almost wish I didn't have to do this college bullshit at this point. The irritation built up on me like waves, as I sat curled into a ball on my chair, deciding whether to finish my homework or procrastinate more.

...Fuck it. I could use a hit right now.

Unplugging my headphones and taking them off, I raised the volume of the game as loud as possible; I've found that music helps calm me during a lot of my trips. I turned off all of my lights, before slowly opening my freezer. Looking down to my bottom shelf, I could see a Ziploc with about 3 sugar cubes left. Thank God, 1 would probably be just good enough for tonight. Quickly pulling the bag out, as to keep the freezer light away from them, I clutched the little blocks. Still cold.

I took two out the bag, I quickly zipped the bag up again and tossed it back in the freezer. Walking to my bed, I jumped on it and laid staring at the ceiling. I raised my right hand, a white cube pinched between my fingers, glistening a shade of the familiar orange. My kind of ticket to an 8-hour escape, as long as the acid wasn't too weakened. I popped it into my mouth, waiting for the effects to kick in.

I knew what to expect by now, yet it's always been invigorating to experience the first hour of the high. The music, I guess because of it's spacey feel, gets me thinking about space, and then how small we as human beings are, before realizing how lucky we are to be on this planet with all of our bodily functions. I'll then likely forget about the music, going off on a tangent about a minute detail I can find in my room for the next hour. Sure enough, I started to think about our planet within the first few minutes, before lastly, I started to talk to myself about how our blood is able to flow through our vessels.

However, I don't know how much time had passed until I gained a little bit of consciousness after that and noticed the song wasn't playing anymore. Fuck, I don't like disrupting the flow, but I needed the music for the third hour. I tilted my head skywards, assuming I forgot to disable the screensaver. However, that wasn't the case: the game was still running perfectly fine, except there was only no music coming from Marissa, only the sound of rushing water. I sat upright on my bed, curious, before carefully walking over to my desk and hopping on my computer, clutching my head. My character stood up as soon as I moved, and I moved closer to her, ready to interact with her to see what was up.

I guess typing while high isn't a good thing though, as I noticed I held down the C key instead of the Up arrow. Fuck, the C key was bonded to the Dream Nail, and I'm right next to her. If I fucking strike her, she's gone. As my sudden realization hit, I felt a wave of my anxiety creeping in. Not knowing what I was doing at that point, I let go, the Dream Nail hitting her. However, instead of immediately disappearing, like all the other ghosts I encountered, she instead opened up a new line of dialogue.

_I've been watching you for quite a while. I think you'll be perfect._

The hell? To make things weirder, she didn't disappear. No, she was there, and it looked as though she stopped looking at the character in the game and more at _me_, in real life. Alright, alright, you win, acid trip—now we can go talk about the cosmos and our blood vessels again. I laughed, walking back to my bed...

Hold up, speaking of bodies, the fuck is going on with my skin? It's turning pure black, almost as dark as charcoal. Jesus Christ, how much did my dealer put in these? I'm looking at my hands, and it almost seems like they're becoming more petite and... _feminine_. I rolled up my sleeves, confused at the black skin crawling up my arms.

The new skin reached up to my shoulders, as I almost vividly felt my elbows pinching together. I began to feel taller, and looking down revealed my neck becoming longer, enveloped by this new black color. The apartment air-vent wind felt a bit colder now, as my elongating face began to push against more and more air. However, this feeling was quickly negated as a hard exoskeleton crept up my face, soon surrounding my entire head. Blonde, droopy hair fell down in front of my eyes; I assumed my brown hair changed along with my head. My hand brushed against this new hair, and it surprisingly felt real. Maybe this is just an extremely bad trip?

Pushing my hair out of the way, I gazed at the computer again. It almost seemed though the character in the game was transforming along with me. Her face compressed into a more human-like shape before her eyes were given a blue color. A mouth and nose formed onto her now tan skin. Her hair retracted into her skull, becoming brown; her arms thickened out, and her head started clipping through her collar.

When I felt my clothes become heavier, I quickly looked down and viewed as the middle of my T-shirt had changed to a gray, metallic diamond on the front and back. The shirt tightened around the bottom half of the diamond, and my pure black shirt collar stretched upwards, covering my neck, and changed into a maroon-pink hue. My pants merged with the shirt, poofing out around my waist. The ends of pants separated into pointed flaps, turning to the ever-so-vibrant shade the top half of my dress changed into. A quick cut up the front of my skirt revealed my changing legs, turning to the same black as my arms and hands. My knees changed exactly like my arms did, caving in on themselves, before soon turning black. My feet bent downwards, causing me to stand on my tiptoes as this new black skin covered them as well.

Looking back up to see if the changes on Marissa still continued, I caught them as her dress finished thickening out. Her dress ended up separating into pants and a shirt. The T-shirt turned to a shade of pure black, and the blue jeans changed into a color of... blue. Her wings shrank in size, from twice her size to roughly her size, to half, to barely noticeable, to not at all. Shoeless feet grew out of the bottom of her legs as the skin turned to a lighter tan, just like how I didn't wear any shoes a couple of seconds ago. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was becoming me.

Suddenly, a _fwoom_ came from behind, and I turned around to find two giant wings behind me. The details on the wings and the clothes, and the skin were so immaculate, I almost thought I was staring at the actual Marissa, in _real_ life, and- Wait. I instantly rushed over to my mirror, seeing the songstress right before me. I looked back down at my clothes, wings, hands, and legs. I'm Marissa. I'm actually fucking Marissa. I know this shit isn't real, but goddamn is this fucking cool.

A few awe-stricken minutes of staring at my hands later, I started chuckling, which eventually evolved into a full-blown maniacal laughter. I stood in front of my mirror, obviously extremely high on acid or hallucinating, laughing like a madman, until I fell over crying I was laughing so hard. I was Marissa. There was no possible way. No fucking way.

After a while, I managed to open my eyes enough to look over at the computer and make out a hand-drawn representation of me, in the game. Before I could question what the hell is happening, a soft, pearl-white glow emitted from the computer, eventually scaling in brightness until it completely blinded me. I held my hands up and shut my eyes.

Opening my eyes again revealed an entirely new environment. I gawked, surveying my surroundings. There were bundles of roses strewn about the room, wall decorations carved behind me, and a red carpet rug right beneath me. Following the carpet with my eyes redirected them to what was in front of me: the Hollow Knight. The character I was just controlling a few minutes ago. He didn't say anything, of course, but I could tell by the shape of his eyes and the uneasiness in the room that he likely saw everything, and was just as confused as me.

He took a hand out from underneath his cloak and reached out towards me. I slowly extended my hand, touching his and locking our fingers together. He turned and began walking out of the room, my room now, with me following closely behind. Dirtmouth would hopefully be a better place than this, I hope. Maybe everyone there would keep me company; maybe they'd even listen to my songs. I blushed as we began running: I haven't ever tried singing before, and I don't even know how it's going to work in this body. I shook off those thoughts and looked forward confidently and awe-stricken, my head up high.

This might just be one of the best trips I've been on.

* * *

Marissa smiled as the transformed and the Hollow Knight made it back to Dirtmouth. Of course, she controlled the knight, but hopefully, her clone could suffice with the whole "singing" thing. She saved her progress, before quickly closing Hollow Knight and turning off the computer. She made note of where the shortcut was, to come back by and switch again when the time came.

But for now, Marissa grabbed the Ziploc bag from his fridge and threw it into the trash can. She sighed, before breathing in and confidently staring at his mirror. It's been a while since she's had an audience, and this new voice probably doesn't help much, but determination was always a strong suit of hers. Two lips smirked, as Marissa planned out what she was going to do with this new body.

It was finally time for a queen to shine again; after all, it _is_ a wonderful thing to have an audience again.


End file.
